Talk on authenticity and reliability in the digital environment: Heather MacNeil

From: Daniel Pitti (dpitti@virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 23 2002 - 15:48:48 EDT

  • Next message: Daniel Pitti: "Reminder: Talk on authenticity and reliability (tomorrow) in the digital environment: Heather MacNeil"

    You are invited to a talk by Heather MacNeil from the School of Library,
    Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia.

    Heather will speak on the issue of "authenticity and reliability in the
    digital environment."

    Friday, 3 May 2002
    10-11 am
    322A Clemons Library

    This talk is sponsored by the Supporting Digital Scholarship Project,
    funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Please feel free to further
    extend this invitation to anyone else who may be interested.

    Heather is a noted authority on the history of authenticity and
    reliability. She was a collaborator on the InterPARES (International
    Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems) project.
    Heather's interest in authenticity is both historical as well as
    contemporary, and covers both archival records (defined precisely by
    archivists) and cultural heritage records.

    MacNeil defines authenticity as follows:

    "Authenticity is the quality of any document that refers to its integrity
    and the certainty of its purported identity. It follows that authentic
    documents are those whose integrity and identity can be proven."

    Her talk will cover the following:

    1. The historical and legal assumptions underpinning current archival
    notions of what constitutes a reliable and authentic record.

    2. Analysis of the characteristics and components of a record from the
    perspective of contemporary diplomatics as a means of assessing its
    authenticity. The analysis is based on traditional records and then
    attempts are made to extend it to the digital environment.

    3. The limits of this analysis as a guide to understanding (a) authenticity
    in a digital environment; and (b) authenticity as it concerns cultural
    documents, including digital collections such as the Blake Archive.

    ----------
    Daniel V. Pitti
    Project Director
    Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
    319 Alderman Library P.O. Box 400115
    University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4115
    Phone: 434 924-6594 Fax: 434 982-2363
    Email: dpitti@Virginia.edu http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu



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